September 12th, 2008
Private browsing becomes the new cool feature.
First Apple’s Safari had it. Then came IE 8 (with “InPrivate) and Google Chrome (with “Incognito”). Now, here comes Mozilla, on track to deliver a privacy mode feature in Firefox version 3.1, scheduled for release next month.
In everyday circles, the feature - regardless of what its name - is known as “porn mode” because they’re designed to allow users to surf the Web without any traces of where they’ve been. No cookies, no stored URLs, no files in the cache and so on.
The competition is really heating up in the browser wars. At Google’s press announcement of Chrome, co-founder Sergey Brin resisted labeling the browser an Web-based operating system. Increasingly, as companies like Google push applications that run on the Internet - also known as being “in the cloud” - the browser becomes the key gateway to the everyday computing tools. Some have argued that Windows is simply a piece of software that just happens to boot first when a computer starts. But if applications that we use everyday - from our photo albums and music libraries to network file systems and e-mail inboxes - are stored online, the browser almost steals the spotlight from the operating system.
In this sense, competition is good for users. It gives us the chance to weigh the benefits of the various features - such as the pop-up blocker that helped Firefox gain in popularity - and make usage decisions accordingly. It’s good to see the browser developers add in new tools that are designed to make the experiences better for us.
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
